Yes, I've had the same problem. Wrote to Dell's customer support and got no help (only that I was supposed to do a system restore, but I'd had the problem from the first time I'd turned on my machine, so what good would that do?). I've uninstalled Quickset for the time being and am hoping that there will be an updated version of the software out at some point, but I'm not holding my breath. I've found problems with almost ALL of Dell's versions of drivers and utilities, including the video card (ATI Mobility 9600 Pro Turbo 128), touch pad, and power management. My new laptop has preformed well, but Dell needs to get the bugs out of their proprietary utilities/drivers/software before putting it on their machines.
Don't waste time on system restore. After I discovered the problem I reinstalled entire XP--with no result.
Let me give you a few more details.
I was setting up the system, gradually. That day--among many other things--I set the desktop, installed MS Office and installed Acrobat 5.0. During installation of Acrobat the entire system crashed on me. The crash was so bad that it did not want to boot back up. The only thing left to do was to reinstall XP. Fortunately XP managed to recover at least some of the settings so I dod not have to start completely form scratch.
Initially I did not know what was causing the dinosaur to stop (and it was not the biggest of my concerns). Then I run into network connected problems and trying to solve it accidentally discovered what was causing the animation to stop. During my network problems fightI spent good three hours on the phone discussing matters with the tech support person, I mentioned the "dinosaur problrem" to him. He was very polite, he tried hard to be helpful, he definitely knew something about computers, but he could not diagnose the problem. Actually, he could not diagnose ANY of the problems.
If after the boot is finished you go to Control Panel/Mouse and re-select the animated cursor it starts working again. I usually don't shut down my notebook but put it to sleep. I decided I can afford having to re-enable the dinosaur from time to time. I still have Touchpad and Quickset installed.
Anyway, thanks for the response. I you learn something new please let me know.
No, I didn't waste my time doing a "system restore" ... I knew it wouldn't work.
I installed Acrobat 5.0 with no problem! Could your trouble have been caused by MS Office? I don't use it. Don't like it. Don't want it. I use WordPerfect products.
You have a "dinosaur" problem ... I have a "spinning globe" problem (my animated "busy" cursor). Right now, I have Quickset uninstalled, and don't really miss it, except when using the volume control button. Yes, I had already figured out how to re-animated the cursor, but I don't leave my computer running, and it gets annoying to have to "re-animate" everytime I turn it on.
I check every so often to see if there's an update for Quickset for my particular laptop model. I even downloaded one for a different model to see if that would make any difference, but it didn't. If there's another utility out there that does the same thing as Quickset, I'm unaware of it. So, I'm still waiting on Dell, but I'm not holding my breath.
During my many email attempts to get some help from Dell, I told them that their software was causing the problem (as indicated by many others on their own forums). The last message I got from them (along with more advice telling me to do a "system restore") was that the department I had been dealing with wasn't able to do anything about software. Within Quickset, I noticed that it is put out by a company called Xceed Software www.xceedsoftware.com. I checked their site, and there is no reference to Quickset, but they do list Dell as one of their clients. I don't know if trying to contact them would do any good, but it might be worth a shot.
I don't know if there's a way to make a request for a "fix" to Dell or not, but I feel sure they are aware of the problem.
I had the animated cursor problem for over a year now (I have an Inspiron 8500) and contacted DELL tech support multiple times without much luck. I already posted this problem on the forum twice and I was hoping for a new release of Quickset. I am almost sure that the problem is with the driver and we have to wait for a new release, but I don't think DELL is aware of it... is there a way to "request" a fix?
Hi...I saw your animated cursor request late last year and I got an Inspiron 5150 in November (actually one of 55 my company bought). All had the problem with animated cursors...boot up and they're gone. My beautiful Secretariat red horse cursor looked like a dumb frozen toad.
I didn't have time to mess with it for a few months as my main laptop is a Latitude. But I swore I would not let it outsmart me. I solved the problem in January and now my cursors work fine. The bad news is I have slept since then and forgot what I did to fix it (may have been the BIOS flash, maybe...or maybe new video driver...I am religious about keeping up with new stuff). Give me a couple of days to take a look at it and I'll see if I can reconstruct my steps. It may only be fixable on this model, but who knows.
As everyone surmised it is the Quickset utility. The latest version doesn't fix the conflict with animated cursors. The good news is I have uninstalled Quickset for three months and don't miss it. My cursors animate and I like them better than any function provided by Quickset. My function keys work fine. Die Quickset! *;-)
Unfortunately I kind of need quickset :-( otherwise Fn+F8 won't work and I can't loop between my monitor and projector during presentations... So I have to stick with Quickset. If anyone finds a solution it would help a lot. Thanks
Yeah, I don't miss it either. The only thing I've found that doesn't work now is the Fn-F10, which causes the CD/DVD drive to eject, but big deal ... it's easier to just push the little button on the drive door!!!
>The only thing I've found that doesn't work now is the Fn-F10, which causes the CD/DVD drive to eject, but big deal
Another software eject function is to rightclick on the CD drive in My Computer and left click on Eject. A shortcut to the Drive on the Desktop helps do this quickly. I use this on my Dell Optiplex which is my main dumb brain on my peer-to-peer because it has a SCSI external LaCie burner that has an incredibly difficult door to open manually. So I just open it from the rightclick/Eject function.
>Another software eject function is to rightclick on the CD drive in My Computer and left click on Eject. A shortcut to the Drive on the Desktop helps do this quickly. .....
Thanks, (yes...Die Quickset!!!)
Texruss
Yeah, there's several "right click" eject functions that I'm aware of, and other ways to do this from within whatever sofware that may be in use for CD playing and/or burning.
Mama8600
15 Posts
0
March 6th, 2004 03:00
Yes, I've had the same problem. Wrote to Dell's customer support and got no help (only that I was supposed to do a system restore, but I'd had the problem from the first time I'd turned on my machine, so what good would that do?). I've uninstalled Quickset for the time being and am hoping that there will be an updated version of the software out at some point, but I'm not holding my breath. I've found problems with almost ALL of Dell's versions of drivers and utilities, including the video card (ATI Mobility 9600 Pro Turbo 128), touch pad, and power management. My new laptop has preformed well, but Dell needs to get the bugs out of their proprietary utilities/drivers/software before putting it on their machines.
darekp
2 Posts
0
March 8th, 2004 13:00
Don't waste time on system restore. After I discovered the problem I reinstalled entire XP--with no result.
Let me give you a few more details.
I was setting up the system, gradually. That day--among many other things--I set the desktop, installed MS Office and installed Acrobat 5.0. During installation of Acrobat the entire system crashed on me. The crash was so bad that it did not want to boot back up. The only thing left to do was to reinstall XP. Fortunately XP managed to recover at least some of the settings so I dod not have to start completely form scratch.
Initially I did not know what was causing the dinosaur to stop (and it was not the biggest of my concerns). Then I run into network connected problems and trying to solve it accidentally discovered what was causing the animation to stop. During my network problems fight I spent good three hours on the phone discussing matters with the tech support person, I mentioned the "dinosaur problrem" to him. He was very polite, he tried hard to be helpful, he definitely knew something about computers, but he could not diagnose the problem. Actually, he could not diagnose ANY of the problems.
If after the boot is finished you go to Control Panel/Mouse and re-select the animated cursor it starts working again. I usually don't shut down my notebook but put it to sleep. I decided I can afford having to re-enable the dinosaur from time to time. I still have Touchpad and Quickset installed.
Anyway, thanks for the response. I you learn something new please let me know.
Mama8600
15 Posts
0
March 9th, 2004 00:00
No, I didn't waste my time doing a "system restore" ... I knew it wouldn't work.
I installed Acrobat 5.0 with no problem! Could your trouble have been caused by MS Office? I don't use it. Don't like it. Don't want it. I use WordPerfect products.
You have a "dinosaur" problem ... I have a "spinning globe" problem (my animated "busy" cursor). Right now, I have Quickset uninstalled, and don't really miss it, except when using the volume control button. Yes, I had already figured out how to re-animated the cursor, but I don't leave my computer running, and it gets annoying to have to "re-animate" everytime I turn it on.
I check every so often to see if there's an update for Quickset for my particular laptop model. I even downloaded one for a different model to see if that would make any difference, but it didn't. If there's another utility out there that does the same thing as Quickset, I'm unaware of it. So, I'm still waiting on Dell, but I'm not holding my breath.
Mama8600
15 Posts
0
March 9th, 2004 01:00
During my many email attempts to get some help from Dell, I told them that their software was causing the problem (as indicated by many others on their own forums). The last message I got from them (along with more advice telling me to do a "system restore") was that the department I had been dealing with wasn't able to do anything about software. Within Quickset, I noticed that it is put out by a company called Xceed Software www.xceedsoftware.com. I checked their site, and there is no reference to Quickset, but they do list Dell as one of their clients. I don't know if trying to contact them would do any good, but it might be worth a shot.
I don't know if there's a way to make a request for a "fix" to Dell or not, but I feel sure they are aware of the problem.
giovannir
52 Posts
0
March 9th, 2004 01:00
Hi to all,
I had the animated cursor problem for over a year now (I have an Inspiron 8500) and contacted DELL tech support multiple times without much luck. I already posted this problem on the forum twice and I was hoping for a new release of Quickset. I am almost sure that the problem is with the driver and we have to wait for a new release, but I don't think DELL is aware of it... is there a way to "request" a fix?
Texruss
3.4K Posts
0
March 13th, 2004 23:00
Hi...I saw your animated cursor request late last year and I got an Inspiron 5150 in November (actually one of 55 my company bought). All had the problem with animated cursors...boot up and they're gone. My beautiful Secretariat red horse cursor looked like a dumb frozen toad.
I didn't have time to mess with it for a few months as my main laptop is a Latitude. But I swore I would not let it outsmart me. I solved the problem in January and now my cursors work fine. The bad news is I have slept since then and forgot what I did to fix it (may have been the BIOS flash, maybe...or maybe new video driver...I am religious about keeping up with new stuff). Give me a couple of days to take a look at it and I'll see if I can reconstruct my steps. It may only be fixable on this model, but who knows.
Cheers,
Texruss
giovannir
52 Posts
0
March 14th, 2004 19:00
Texruss
3.4K Posts
0
March 14th, 2004 21:00
As everyone surmised it is the Quickset utility. The latest version doesn't fix the conflict with animated cursors. The good news is I have uninstalled Quickset for three months and don't miss it. My cursors animate and I like them better than any function provided by Quickset. My function keys work fine. Die Quickset! *;-)
Texruss
giovannir
52 Posts
0
March 14th, 2004 22:00
Mama8600
15 Posts
0
March 14th, 2004 22:00
Yeah, I don't miss it either. The only thing I've found that doesn't work now is the Fn-F10, which causes the CD/DVD drive to eject, but big deal ... it's easier to just push the little button on the drive door!!!
Texruss
3.4K Posts
0
March 14th, 2004 23:00
>The only thing I've found that doesn't work now is the Fn-F10, which causes the CD/DVD drive to eject, but big deal
Another software eject function is to rightclick on the CD drive in My Computer and left click on Eject. A shortcut to the Drive on the Desktop helps do this quickly. I use this on my Dell Optiplex which is my main dumb brain on my peer-to-peer because it has a SCSI external LaCie burner that has an incredibly difficult door to open manually. So I just open it from the rightclick/Eject function.
Thanks, (yes...Die Quickset!!!)
Texruss
Texruss
3.4K Posts
0
March 14th, 2004 23:00
>Unfortunately I kind of need quickset :-( otherwise Fn+F8 won't work and I can't loop between my monitor and projector during presentations
You verified this I guess? What Inspiron model? My 5150 still loops to Sharp and InFocus LCDs without Quickset. I have the latest Nvidia driver.
Texruss
Mama8600
15 Posts
0
March 15th, 2004 01:00
Yeah, there's several "right click" eject functions that I'm aware of, and other ways to do this from within whatever sofware that may be in use for CD playing and/or burning.
Mama8600
15 Posts
0
November 14th, 2004 22:00
Well, well ... seems Dell has finally fixed the animated cursor problem. Just took them up to v2.2.0, Release A18 to get it right!!!
You can get this release here.